Mirrors Edge

Review from Matt, Matt and Matt - Friday, 05 December 2008 @ 2:46pm

Mirror's Edge is like an internet date. From a quick view it looks like something you really like, but what you see and expect aren't necessarily going to be what you get.

Continuing our little metaphor, lets take the demo as sort of a profile. It lets you see a little bit more, provides some information, and most of all, suggests that there may be more here than just the pretty face you saw.

Then there was the actual date. Everything seemed good at first. We got together, and there was a degree of chemistry. She seemed very much like what the profile suggested, interesting, different, and a lot of fun. The date went relatively well for a while, everything going swimmingly. But after a while it started to sour a little bit. The date stopped being fun and started being kind of... hard work. Then came the point where she started trying to put me in a dress and call me Susan, while beating me with a coat hanger. I certainly don't recall signing up for this bit.

I'm going to take a break from my metaphor now.

The rope! Grab the rope!

Mirror's Edge was a title that up until the demo looked to me like an interesting title worth watching out for. It was the demo that took it from a nice idea to an exceptional title. It works. All the stuff that looked like it may or may not work really worked, and worked well, creating an enjoyable and almost sublime feeling of smooth flowing running. Everyone was excited and eager for what could be the next truly great and innovative title.

But then cracks began to appear.

Mirror's Edge has been panned by many. People on our forums saying that after the awesome demo the rest of the game allegedly unpolished and buggy, the gameplay degenerates into trial and error. The feelings have been strong enough to unite nemeses on a thread imaginatively titled "Mirror's Edge sucks".

Those views have been responded to by many of us who ask "are you playing the same game as me"?

I normally wouldn't mention this sort of thing, but in this case it's relevant. Game reviewing is a subjective thing, much as we try to submerge our opinions beneath some kind of objective reviewer mask the experience we have of the game is a personal one. In this case I'm reviewing a game with a starkly different opinion to what many other people have. Bear that in mind.

There are a number of things this title gets points for.

One is its art style. The most immediately noticable thing is the look of the game, which is stark white and light greys, with splashes of orange, blue and red. Red is the most important colour, signalling a "good way to go". It's called "runner vision", which is their way of explaining the in-game reason why recommended paths are bright red. It works to a large degree, assuming you accept it as the polite crutch it is.

Orange and blue have no inherent meaning, merely serving to break up the stark whiteness with vivid flashes of colour. The whole look works well, making the ambiguously dystopian city look clean and shiny, but somewhat sterile.

The second point is scored for being something different. The current games scene is festooned liberally with space marines and alien attacks and it's nice to see something trying to look feel different, to forge its own path. In look it's a glaring white patch in the sea of brown and grey that has become the FPS genre, and in gameplay it's actually doing something different, something genuinely unique and untried. Even if it didn't work that would be something worth stating.

Finally, Mirror's Edge gets points for being non-violent. Combat in Mirror's Edge is awful. Faith hits like a spaz, you can't reload, and there's no indication at all of your health. But that's kind of the point. The minimal combat you encounter generally can be best dealt with by knocking the baddies unconscious while disarming them. Gunplay is to be avoided in general, as you can take painfully few hits. I don't mean to labour this point, but an industry built on a solid foundation of mindless violence needs to occasionally offer these sorts of alternatives.

On that last point, though, there are a few things that need to be stated. Mirror's Edge attempts to be non-violent, but only to a degree. There's no real benefit to avoiding combat, and there is a bit advantage to simply taking someone's gun and shooting the remaining baddies. Some baddies are remarkably difficult to disarm or defeat, and any groups of enemies almost certainly requires some shooty goodness.

Combat works pretty well on these guys. Little guns are easier to take. THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID! Wait....

ME's pacifism comes at a high price. Combat has been compromised to the running jumping climbing on trees thing and it's a nice theory but increasingly the latter parts of the game force the player into combat the game itself is woefully inequipped to handle.

A lot of people have complained about the "trial and error" nature of the gameplay. At first this didn't bother me too much. When I make a mistake I deserve to get punished for it, and the checkpoints weren't too far apart. Later on, though the checkpoints seem to be spaced more awkwardly, and the "trial and error" becomes extremely harsh. Trial and error is one thing, but when there's no actual "error" and the game is just so relentlessly difficult that you have to try 20+ times before finally fluking it... that gets frustrating. This is especially the case with anywhere combat is involved, as your enemies are not your only adversary - the controls are against you, too.

The core of the game is "free running". But you're not as "free" as you should be. There's a surprising linearity to the levels, and rather than being a matter of getting yourself there by any means possible there's usually only one correct way. Considering the depth of movement given to protagonist-girl there should surely be more options than that. Details in path are minor, and don't make enough difference to the fact that it's really quite linear. The "running" is also sadly rare. The open rooftops are your highways, but you spend too much time in sewers and office buildings, and a range of places that don't lend themselves well to a neat line. Practise might, but having to constantly stop and start takes a lot of the flow from a game that really should be built on it.

Running and jumping and climbing is all fun and everything, but it starts to get samish after a bit. The same techniques are used to get over all the fences, the same vents are used all the time, etc. The lack of variety stops the place ever feeling like a real city.

And speaking of cities, what the hell is wrong with the place? We know it's evil because the protagonist keeps making demeaning comments about 'this place' and stuff like that. But what's actually WRONG? It seems very clean, very nice. There's no evidence or even suggestion of oppression or of harshness or corruptness. No 1984 vibe. Even little things like the TV news screens in the elevators are nowhere near as oppressive as they should be, mostly just containing straight news stories. In the end is just makes Faith and her runner buddies sound like those crazy American militia men who live in the mountains to avoid the upcoming new world order. I kind of expected the city's "darkness" to surface during the course of gameplay, as a nice contrast to the stark white of the levels early on.

I was disappointed.

There aren't many people out and on the streets, which may be an attempt to invoke the feeling of martial law and curfews, but just felt to me like the developers couldn't be bothered animating people. Everywhere felt like it was Sunday. No one was working in the buildings I broke into. No one was walking on the streets I ran through. Does no one live in this city except me and the cops?

There was one thing that Mirror's Edge really needed, and that was a story. The demo promised a lot in terms of story. The start has you transporting a mysterious briefcase, and the police unexpectedly opening fire on you. The logical question of "what's in the briefcase that's so important" seemed like an excellent start to a potentially interesting story. Cyberpunk is built on this kind of thing. Could it be some sort of key to a new computer system? A vaccine for a plague that's been sweeping the city? An experimental power source? Could it be... read some William Gibson and get back to me.

Unfortunately the briefcase is irrelevant, and discarded immediately. The actual story is a rather prosaic one that starts in a meandering arc and finishes suddenly and rather flatly. Grand themes of oppression and freedom are abandoned in favour of saving your stupid sister by being more stupid yourself.

The way the story is told is also strange. There are two types of "story bit". In game cut-scenes and animations. The in-game stuff works pretty well. It's not much of a story, but at least it feels relatively real. The animations, though, feel cheap. I get the feeling they did it that way so they wouldn't have to model some locations (like your home base) but they still don't work that well.

Sliding. Not pictured: wandering around in a sewer for ages afterwards

As a last point, I have to say that the technical problems people encountered I did not. A lot of complaints were made in our forum about people not being able to catch things, and just dying, not through a lack of skill, but awkwardly clipping through stuff they should have logically gotten. I didn't have anything like that. I found the game technically very polished, and had no issues of that nature. Maybe it's a version thing? Maybe the PS3 version doesn't have issues that plague the 360 one? I'm not sure.

Going back finally to my dating metaphor, Mirror's Edge seems like it could be the one, only to find out half way through that she's a Born Again Vegetarian who only likes you as a friend anyway.

Some potential metaphors that were rejected:

Mirror's Edge is like Barack Obama - differently coloured to what we're used to.

Mirror's Edge is like Lindsay Lohan - always chasing the perfect line.

Mirror's Edge is like being black - the cops are going to beat you for no good reason.

Mirror's Edge is like an 8 year old girl - looks awesome running, but fails at combat.

Mirror's Edge is like my vision - the colour is all weird and half the time you can't see shit.

Mirror's Edge is like conspiracy theorists - constantly says the government is bad, but never explains why.

Mirror's Edge is like my penis - remarkably short, and gets hard half way through.

Pros

Great graphics, nice style, gameplay can be fun. Innovation and difference deserves respect, especially from EA, who are not generally known for taking a risk on a new IP.

Cons

Flat storyline. Dying. And dying. And dying. And dying. Awful combat. Samish - same pipes to the same airvents to the same building. Unforgiving. Why is the government bad again?